Life

Neko Case, singer-songwriter and member of the New Pornographers, played to a fan-friendly audience at Campbell Hall on Friday, November 18, showcasing her unique voice and low-key charm to an adoring and generous audience.

By Kyle Crocco, Writing Peer
Monday, November 21st, 2016 - 1:16pm


    UCSB Arts and Lectures presented a concert for the true fans of Neko Case.

Neko Case, singer-songwriter and member of the New Pornographers, played at Campbell Hall on Friday, November 18, showcasing her unique voice and low-key charm to an adoring and fan-friendly audience.

Case and her band had an easygoing chemistry, marked by multiple in jokes, teasing, and a laid-back approach to the starting, stopping, and ending of songs. ​They made the audience feel as if they were ​friends in their backyard rather than a large concert hall.

When starting in on her well known song "I Wish I Was the Moon," Case suddenly broke into laughter about a third of the way into the song, stopped singing, slyly referenced some image she had in her head about her pedal​-steel guitarist, Jon Rauhouse, and then after a minute, the band returned to the song as if nothing had transpired.

Unlike the songs she sings as a vocalist for the New Pornographers, ​her songs were mellower, featuring slower arrangements and with less of a chorus/verse structure, yet they all seemed to work, albeit sometimes stopping abruptly.

Next music shows coming up in the Arts and Lectures series features music at Campbell Hall for fans of the ukulele: Jake Shimabukuro on December 1 and the Ukulele Orchestra on December 15.